


Cradled

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Ten H/C Bingo Card [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 09:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: Steve doesn't get to be mad. He doesn't get to be hurt. He doesn't get to reach out.The sadness, though. Steve thinks he gets to hold onto that. He doesn't get to be mad or hurt and he doesn't get to hold onto Tony in his last moments, but the aching, yawning sadness inside of him... Steve thinks he might get to have that.Steve watches. Because that's all he gets to have.





	Cradled

Steve doesn't get to be mad. He lost that right when he stood and let Tony rail at him without offering up even so much as an apology. Too focused on the mission to see the way Tony was just begging for something like regret. Steve doesn't get to be mad.

Steve doesn't get to be hurt. He knows this. He's known it for years. He lost that right when he made a choice not to trust in his good heart and tell Tony everything that he knew. Steve doesn't get to be hurt.

Steve doesn't get to reach out. Tony has people that stood by him and loved him and never chose anyone else over him. Those are the people that get to reach out for him. Those are the people that get to be there with him. Steve doesn't get to reach out.

The sadness, though. Steve thinks he gets to hold onto that. He doesn't get to be mad or hurt and he doesn't get to hold onto Tony in his last moments, but the aching, yawning sadness inside of him... Steve thinks he might get to have that.

He doesn't let himself look away, though. Doesn't let himself not see. This is the path that Tony chose, this is the _end_ that Tony chose, and Steve owes it to him to see that through to its end. This is Tony's path. Steve doesn't get to decide that for him. Not now. Not ever. But he won't do Tony the disservice of not seeing the choice that he made.

"You can rest now," Pepper says. The words ache down Steve's spine. "You can rest."

He thinks he understands, now, why Tony chose her. She sees Tony in a way that Steve never has. She doesn't hold anything against him, not even this. Not even his death. Even then, all she wanted to do was make it easier for him. She loved the way Steve never could. Selflessly, wholly, endlessly. Steve doesn't think he could have been so strong in Tony's last moments. Strong enough to give him the kind of ending he deserved, one as free from emotional pain as any of them could provide. Tony lived through hell; he deserves to die in peace.

The thought tightens a fist around Steve's chest. That this, Tony's last moments would have to be cradled in the hands of the one thing he'd never truly had in life. Peace. A man born into a life of war and destruction, with the certainty that there's more blood on his hands than he could ever know despite the fact that Steve knows he never would have chosen that life for himself. It is the life he was handed and the life he held and this is what the world did to him, what the world gave him in return. A widow and an orphaned daughter and friends that loved him and former friends that only added to his pain. This is what the world gave the man raised in war and death and destruction with the kindest, truest heart Steve has seen in years. This is how the world repaid him.

How Steve repaid him.

Tony's breath rattles in his chest. The pain is clear from every angle, from every inch of skin Steve can see. The radiation burns along his face (aching burning boiling and Steve can only imagine taking on that pain by choice) and the mottled hand that once inhabited Tony's makeshift Infinity Gauntlet (not makeshift, Tony planned for this, Tony _planned for this_ ) and the pain in the single syllable he utters ( _"Pep,"_ he says, and Steve can't breathe) and Steve doesn't know how to live with this. How can Pepper sit there with her heart on her sleeve even as she hides it behind an aura of confidence and faith and trust for Tony? How can Rhodey just ease Peter away like they boy isn't watching his idol die right in front of his eyes. Like Rhodey himself isn't watching his best friend _die_. How can _Steve_ \--

The breath comes softer than Steve expected out of Tony's chest in his last breath, and Steve thinks he might die right there along with him. He watches helplessly as Pepper leans forward and presses a kiss to Tony's forehead, as the world celebrates the defeat of Thanos, as Steve's heart is shattering in his chest.

Whatever they won, Steve has only one thought that resonates in his chest.

_Was it worth it?_

" _We don't trade lives,_ " he'd said five years and a breath and a lifetime and a heartbeat ago, and he knows in his soul that it's still true, but this wasn't his choice. This wasn't his call. This was all Tony. Tony, the man with a plan, the man that always had a plan, and there's no way this was what was supposed to happen, no way this was what the world meant for them, but here they are, standing at Tony's side as the life of the greatest man Steve has ever known fades from his skin.

Pepper can't seem to pull herself away from Tony, and yet she can't seem to make herself touch him again either. Caught in between and shaking apart at the seams and Steve wants to make this easier on her but he doesn't know if he's allowed to. Still.

Still.

He forces his feet to move. He takes one, then two, then three steps toward Pepper. He doesn't quite fall to his knees at her side but it's a near thing. He reaches out to touch her, then thinks better of it at the last moment. His hand clenches into a fist of its own accord. "Pepper, I...." He swallows. "What do you want to do?"

He doesn't apologize.

He doesn't get to.

Pepper looks up at him, eyes blazing with sudden fury. Steve swallows and meets her expression head-on. Whatever he may not get to have, her rage is certainly no less than he deserves. The fight goes out of her in an instant, and she looks away from Steve, back to Tony. She reaches out with trembling fingers and closes his eyes. "Off the battlefield," she says, and Steve understands before she clears her throat and reiterates. "I want his body off the battlefield."

"Of course." Steve swallows, then meets her eyes as she turns to him. "May I?"

For an instant, Steve thinks she's going to fight him on this. That she's going to claim her wife's privilege and use the strength of her suit to take Tony to his final resting place. But something in her eyes seems to register the desperation Steve imagines must be in his. She closes her eyes and looks back at Tony's face, her expression aching and pained. "You may."

Steve doesn't have the words to thank her the way he wants to. Instead he claps a hand on her shoulder and moves past her to lift Tony into his arms.

It's more than Steve deserves and less than he wants but he doesn't get to be mad doesn't get to be hurt doesn't get to reach out, but this.... This he can have.

_It wasn't worth it._

**Author's Note:**

> Written for H/C Bingo Round 10. Unbetaed. [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


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